[JURIST] A judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] on Wednesday sentenced Irwin Lipkin, a former controller of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, to six months in prison for his involvement in Bernard Madoff’s [JURIST news archive] multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Lipkin contributed to the scheme by falsifying records. While Madoff insisted that he acted alone, U.S. Attorney David Abramowicz stated [Reuters report], “[t]he lesson we’ve seen in this parade of guilty defendants is: Bernard Madoff didn’t do this alone.” He clarified that Madoff indeed found the help he needed “in people like Irwin Lipkin.” Lipkin is the last of fifteen defendants to be sentenced, marking the end of the criminal case that arose from the Ponzi scheme [DOJ backgrounder].

Legal action has continued from the fallout of the 2008 Madoff Ponzi scheme. In June 2014 a former accountant for Madoff plead guilty [JURIST report] to charges connected to the Ponzi scheme. In March 2014 a federal jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York returned a guilty verdict [JURIST report] for five former associates of Madoff on charges they aided and profited from the Ponzi scheme. In January 2014 a federal judge approved a settlement [JURIST report] between the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s failure to report internal suspicions regarding Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. In September 2013 a judge for the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled [JURIST report] that victims can only recover the principal amount invested without accounting for inflation over the past five years and excluding interest. In April 2013 a judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a suit [JURIST report] by victims against the US Securities and Exchange Commission.